


foxtrot

by Bee_4



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Demons, Dream Smp, Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Found Family, Gen, Temporary Character Death, also at least ONE dreamon, fundy and dream are married but like platonically, in a very "we might be the only three people alive so we're being forced to bond" sense but still, is there a tag for "intensely melancholy"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:42:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bee_4/pseuds/Bee_4
Summary: Fundy, Tubbo, Dream, and the end of the world.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Floris | Fundy, Clay | Dream & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Floris | Fundy & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	foxtrot

It’s been twenty-four hours since Tubbo and him had barricaded the doors of the White House, scrawling bloody ritual runes on every wall as quickly as they could. It’s been about eighteen hours since Tubbo, shaking, proclaimed the scrawled protections enough to protect them from what was outside. It’s been fourteen hours since the two of them stared out the window over the horizon and realized the sun hadn’t risen on time and Fundy had realized he was about to cry, having held a breath he didn’t actually have in that moment, waiting for a sun that wasn’t coming.

It’s been thirteen hours since Fundy realized he had quite literally gouged bloody stripes into the kitchen table, he’d been gripping it so hard while the two of them pretended they could eat anything, and he and Tubbo had to panic for a moment and try to decide if the gouges would interfere with the wards. It’s been ten hours since either of them last attempted to sleep, the noise and lack thereof outside preventing either of them from doing much more than fitfully close their eyes. 

It’s been five hours since Tubbo realized that the wards will not let Fundy back in if they cross them at all to get more supplies. It’s been three hours since he told Fundy. 

It’s been fifteen minutes since they heard the last demon, and had to restart the argument over whether the wards should be broken at all.

Altogether, with shaking hands and paws, Fundy had to admit it wasn’t how he’d intended to spend the past day. They had enough baked potatoes for a while, at least. They had so many baked potatoes, for some reason. Tubbo had murmured something about habit from Pogtopia, and Technoblade, and wounds still raw. Fundy nearly presses anyway, just to talk about something bearable. Technoblade is a raw, salted wound, but it’s easier than the other obvious topics.

Neither of them have asked yet if the other knows what’s happened to the rest of the cabinet. Neither of them have asked yet if the other also suspects what’s happened, given that they haven’t already heard from anyone.

Silence speaks volumes.

It’s been twenty-eight hours since Fundy walked into the White House for a meeting about rebuilding, a set of notes he’d made with Quackity in hand to try to convince Tubbo that they needed more standing war preparations. It’s been twenty-seven hours since Tubbo and Fundy stopped talking about the construction oversight duties of the foreman. It’s been twenty-six and five minutes since Tubbo accidentally set Fundy’s frayed nerves off by bringing up Wilbur’s library. It’s been twenty-six hours since they both stopped talking, unable to continue to talk about dead presidents without aching, the two of them looking out over a strangely quiet and still crater as the sun finished setting.

Quiet. Silence speaks volumes. Fundy should have known something was wrong right then. New L’Manburg was many things, but quiet and still wasn’t normally one of them. There were normally at least a few people laughing or talking or pranking, balancing on the wooden platforms they’d built over the ruins of their old nation. People in New L’Manburg were adjusting to a life on edges the same they always had. But then? Then, for a moment, even the birds had seemed quiet. Fundy should have known better, as the sun set for the last time.

It’s somewhere between quiet and too loud all at once outside. Fundy had seen fire, earlier. Neither he nor Tubbo could see properly out of the windows with the way the wards were scratched even into the glass now, red and sharp. They don’t need to be able to see out to know that there aren’t as many paths to balance on anymore. Fundy hasn’t brought himself to check whether they  _ can _ even walk away from the White House safely.

It’s been twenty-five and fifteen minutes since the two of them stopped awkwardly avoiding talking about Wilbur to politely argue about the merits of peace versus removing Technoblade from existence. It’s been twenty-five hours and six minutes since the two of them froze, some instinct making all of Fundy’s fur rise before they could keep talking, some instinct driving Tubbo to silence. It’s been exactly twenty-five hours since they heard the first scream.

The next hour was hell, slowly rising. And then they’d drawn the wards, three hours of endless work to make sure they were as unbreakable as possible.

Tubbo looks awful for someone who hasn’t left his house in over a day. They’d showered, tried to sleep. That was the advantage of being trapped inside, instead of getting overtaken in a cave or something. Still, Fundy can’t imagine he looks much better than Tubbo does.

It’s been about twenty-six hours since the world started ending. 

This isn’t how Fundy thought he’d spend the day at all.

“Look, Mister President, we can survive on potatoes in here for several more days. Probably weeks, the number of baked potatoes you have your hands on is kind of embarrassing actually? We can wait to figure out a plan if we’ve gotta, but if you’re just holding back on my account, Tubbo -”

“I, I can’t,” Tubbo says. “What we have written, I think it repels all non-humans and non-human attacks. Which is, it is, it’s good! But if you leave now…”

“Yeah, I know.”

The argument has been circular the past three hours. It goes like this: there’s no way to really figure out what’s happening unless one of them leaves. Fundy is older, and also not the president. Therefore, Fundy should leave. However, the wards will lock Fundy out if he does, because Fundy is a fox, not a human. Lock Fundy out. Lock Fundy out, outside where the demons are tearing things apart. Therefore, Fundy shouldn’t go alone, or should wait until they’re sure it’s safe to leave. However, Tubbo is the president. If he dies of whatever’s happening, they’re all pretty fucked. Therefore, Fundy should go alone. But Fundy will be trapped alone. (But Tubbo would be trapped alone, too, because cracking all the wards altogether would be to call down the hounds.) But without the wards, the White House will almost certainly be overtaken by -

\- this -

\- Fundy’s never lived through an apocalypse before, but whatever’s happening right now is probably one of those. Dreamon hunting had been one thing, but the streets are full of creatures Fundy can barely make himself look at and keep his mind. He saw Puffy, once, looking out the window, and her wool shifted strangely in color, and she’d looked through the window at him and pulled a sword. He didn’t like Puffy, normally. He didn’t like her at all. But in that moment, it wasn’t dislike he was feeling. No, not dislike, not as his tail puffed up all the way down to the tip. and Puffy looked at him with blank eyes.

There are a number of good reasons not to look out the window right now. Fundy doesn’t want to see someone he actually  _ likes _ look at him in a way that makes him want to vomit.

The sun has not risen properly since it set twenty-six hours ago.

“We can’t just stay in here forever,” Fundy says. 

“We?” Tubbo says, his voice cracking. 

“We,” agrees Fundy, giving in at last. “We. We wait until we’re pretty sure no one’s around, though.”

“We can go to the Dreamon Hunting camp!” Tubbo says, his eyes brightening. It has been at least twelve hours since they were that bright.

“Yeah!” Fundy says. “This isn’t quite what we’ve trained for, but -”

“It’s what we made that place for,” Tubbo finishes. “It’s not exactly the same, but we can go there and, and get our supplies, I have my coat in my house and we have spares in the camp -”

“The wards on the back should work against these things too, right?”

“They should!” Tubbo waves his hands.

“We need to pack our inventories. We might not be exactly back here for a while.” Fundy’s inventory is a random mess of things. He’s glad he was actually wearing his armor when he came to meet with Tubbo. He’s glad for whatever paranoid instinct lead him to be still wearing the heavy-light purple armor. 

“Yeah! I’ll bring an Ender Chest too… how many potatoes should we bring?”

“That really is all you ate in your rebellion, isn’t it?”

And they both stand up and start running around the house. There’s somewhere they’re going. They don’t know when, but they’re going somewhere, and they have to be ready the moment they do. 

It’s been ten minutes since they made a plan when Fundy gets the first messages either of them have gotten on their communicators in over a day.

<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : are you alive?   
<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : are you yourself? not possessed?   
<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : answer me, fundy. Please.   
<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : donr be gone too.

And Fundy has to try not to start crying.

It feels like an omen. Gods above, gods above, it feels like an omen.

Both he and Tubbo had been on the opposite end of Dream’s axe as their world crumbled around them. The world’s crumbling around them again. There’s a good argument to be made that they shouldn’t tell Dream where they are. Hell, Dream is basically a demon already, let alone with what’s happening. A tiger, liable to eat your face on a whim as much as to let you pet him. They’re enemies in a lot of senses, even considering that Tubbo is more friendly than most of New L’Manburg with Dream, even after everything, and Fundy is his fiance. Dream is unpredictable. Dream will use anything to his advantage, and you won’t see what the advantage was for another two months if you aren’t careful. Dream is literally still half-dreamon.

Fundy keeps on looking at the communicator and thinking:  _ there’s more than just two of us _ .

<ItsFundy> whispers to <Dream> : im in the white hous   
<ItsFundy> whispers to <Dream> : tubbos alive too

<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : ill come to you. stay there

“You told him where we were? Fundy!”

“I panicked! I’m not sorry.”

<Dream> whispers to <Tubbo_> : stay there, ill be there soon

“Okay,” says Tubbo. Tubbo breathes out for a moment, looking up and thinking, before turning back to Fundy. “I’m going to go back to making sure I’m packed. Can we really afford to let him see the dreamon hunting camp? I mean, we did exorcise him, but he’s also still, you know, a  _ little bit _ dreamon.”

“We  _ could _ just leave him in the pit.”

Tubbo laughs, loudly. “You can explain that to Dream.”

Fundy laughs too. They both laugh, and then somewhere in the middle, it turns from laughing at the idea of Dream trapped behind wooden bars in a pit in the ground to something far more hysterical. He’s coming. Someone’s coming for them, and someone’s alive, and it’s Dream, and Fundy’s not sure he’s ever felt something so strongly in his life, even if, as he laughs, he can’t begin to identify what he’s feeling. Tubbo is shaking far harder than he should from laughter alone, and Fundy thinks that they’re both crying, as they sit there. He’s crying too. Their enemy. Their friend. Their enemy. His husband.

It has been twenty-four hours since they barricaded the doors with no idea if they’d walk outside alive again. It’s been twenty-seven since anyone else had contacted them. Fundy decides to start counting from zero again. An omen. He’ll count from the start of each omen.

Eight minutes since Dream said he’d come get them. Nine minutes. Ten minutes. Eleven…

* * *

It’s been 72 minutes since Dream said he’d come get them.

Fundy’s been in several wars before, and as he sits with Tubbo, he recognizes what he’s feeling. It’s something like anticipation. It’s something like fear. It’s something like: Dream messaged the both of them again ten minutes ago, seventy-six minutes after the first message, to confirm he was outside of New L’Manburg. It’s something like: it’s going to be a mad rush to fight their way out and they know it. It’s something like: at any time, they’ll all give the ready signal, and Fundy has packed his entire life into a single ender chest and a single inventory. It’s like:

“Fundy,” says Tubbo.

“Tubbo,” says Fundy.

“We did set our spawns when we tried to sleep, right?”

“Right,” agreeds Fundy.

“But we can’t - that means that if one of us, you know, we’re going to be very stuck. I’d wake up here alone.”

“I’d make him come back for you,” says Fundy, and he means it.

It’s been seventy-seven minutes since Dream said he’d come for them. Fundy’s been in wars before, he’s been with Tubbo, both placed in a cabinet that could eat them any day. He knows the feeling. It’s something like: netherite armor sits strangely on his shoulders, the range of movement never being quite right and yet making Fundy feel safer than he could possibly feel without it. Its something like: seventy-eight minutes since they made the plan, an unknown number of minutes until Dream sends the signal, and an unknown amount of time before he wakes up gasping on a bed for the breath that was stolen from his lungs. Or he doesn’t, and he’s sent someone else into those terrifying moments of nothing instead.

He remembers the moments of losing himself before and decides he wants a book. The White House has plenty, all for writing decrees with. He grabs one, shoves it in his pockets, and realizes he’s out of space, beyond that.. Tubbo looks at him. Fundy shrugs. Tubbo shrugs back. Fundy’d seen him pack several music disks and a jukebox. They both have “non-essentials” they weren’t going to leave without.

Eighty.

Dream messages them.

<Dream> whispers to <ItsFundy> : im in a safe spot outside lmanburg message me when its go

Fundy shows it to Tubbo. They check their things. They look across the wooden walls of the White House. Then, Tubbo says, quietly:

“Maybe I should try to message Tommy one last time. I mean, I know he’s a big man and can take care of himself! But he hasn’t said anything yet and...”

“Yeah,” says Fundy. Tubbo pulls out the communicator one last time. Fundy looks at his own and doesn’t message Eret, and Wilbur’s dead anyway, and they wait for almost five minutes and then he hears Tubbo sniffle, hard, and he carefully puts his hand on Tubbo’s shoulder. He doesn’t ask. He won’t make Tubbo say it.

“Okay,” says Tubbo after a moment. “I’m ready now.”

Silence. Silence. Five minutes pass.

Dream drops off the roof and knocks on the door, having snuck around corners and crept over roofs to get from wherever he’d been hiding to them. He drops from the roof of the White House, tries to open the door - that part wasn’t part of the plan they’d told him to wait for Tubbo to crack the wards - jerked back his hand as Tubbo opened the door, then grabbed both of their hands. The air outside of the White House is  _ cold _ , biting hard against Fundy’s skin. The city’s still lit up by lanterns in the air and torches along the paths. Like any other night.

The plan goes like this: Dream knows how to get in and out of anywhere without getting caught, and he gestures, and then Fundy and Tubbo are leaping beside Dream on paths even they didn’t think were possible in L’Manburg. Below them, people walk, but their steps flicker, flicker. They aren’t people. They aren’t people anymore. Dream yanks on Fundy’s arm, dragging him behind a chimney. Tubbo swallows hard as a  _ creature _ passes by, made of eyes and feathers and fur and something that Fundy can’t identify but thinks might just be fear and it  _ looks up it looks up and Dream presses the three of them tight against the chimney and it LOOKS UP AT THEM AND IT _

walks away

and it takes everything Fundy has not to make a sound as it walks away, walks away, walks away, he can’t break down yet, Dream picks up Tubbo and practically throws him across to another platform before grabbing Fundy and leaping and they keep going. The plan is to keep going. They’re from New L’Manburg, still in construction, to live in the city you have to get used to leaping between cliffs and balancing on platforms across the top and sides of a crater they know how to take these paths they

Fundy slips

no, no, his fur stands on end as he falls back he’s good but he can’t keep up with Dream and he’s going to fall into the crater he’s going to fall to death and he doesn’t want to it’ll hurt it’ll be fucking slow and he can’t help it he  _ screams _ , animal and frightened, and one of the others grabs him by his shirt and yanks him up but it’s  _ too late now. _

They’ve heard.

“Well shit,” Tubbo says, as Fundy shakes. Dream pulls his axe. They have to keep trying, and if they stay on the roofs -

\- no, that doesn’t work, because the moment Dream tries to dodge to the next roof he’s going too  _ fast _ and Tubbo and Fundy look at each other and they can’t keep up like that over the roofs they have to get back on the ground so they leap down and the people-not-people around them look at them and. Gods. Gods. Their eyes. Fundy stops looking at their eyes and he and Tubbo pull swords as Dream drops down with an axe.

Fundy slams the butt of a rusted iron sword into one of the heads in front of him because he doesn’t want to directly kill someone from L’Manburg even if they aren’t there, they aren’t there, but all the people around them are reaching out for Fundy and Fundy doesn’t fully recognize any of them. From the way Tubbo stiffens, he does, because Tubbo cares enough to know most of the faces in L’Manburg, but Fundy just knows them as the random faces of citizens who weren’t his friends and family and he slams his foot into the chest of someone else as Tubbo’s throwing snowballs for some reason but it works, it’s non-lethal, and so far it’s just people-who-aren’t-people-anymore. It’s just the eyes and the too-long nails and the way that they move that they have to be afraid of. They run. They run.

A spray of blood falls across Fundy’s muzzle. Dream’s mask is red. His axe is red. Bodies appear, flicker, and vanish at Dream’s feet.

One of them doesn’t vanish, the severed arm sitting in the same place the person Dream had cut down bled out and didn’t stand up again.

Tubbo makes a keening sound and then Dream grabs Tubbo’s wrist and they keep running, because they don’t have another choice. They have to get somewhere less populated. They’re out of the heart of the city, at least. They’re nearing the edges of the crater. There’s a  _ howl _ behind them and Fundy doesn’t look back. He knows he can’t look back. He knows he can’t look back, no matter what he does.

Dream’s fast, and now that they’re on stable ground, neither Fundy nor Tubbo are slouches, and they can just barely keep up, barely predict the dodges and weaves through the buildings, and Tubbo looks at Fundy and the next time someone catches up with them Fundy jumps forward before Dream can raise the axe and deal with the problem himself. Another sword butt and a slam into the solar plexus. They won’t get up for a while but they’ll live. Black liquid pours from their mouth onto Fundy’s fur. They’re almost out of the city. Once they’re out of the city, they can find somewhere to hide better, they won’t be surrounded by the possessed, they’ll be able to keep going, the wind howls, the thing behind them  _ howls _ and it sounds like television static and bloodshed.

And then there’s someone else between them and the very edge of L’Manburg and this time, they all recognize him.

“Karl?” says Tubbo, his voice surprisingly even. It wobbles a little, but it’s even enough.

“Sorry, guys,” says Karl, sounding painfully apologetic. He picks up something that should be a sword but isn’t a sword and points it at them, or at least, Fundy thinks he’s pointing it at them. Fundy makes the mistake of looking at his eyes. 

His eyes.

They aren’t there. His eyes. Where are they? Rainbows, maybe, or fires, yes, fires made of shadows and color, spiraling, but they aren’t eyes, they aren’t -

\- Dream cleanly cuts his head off before Fundy can even process what he’s looked at. Tubbo makes a thin, crushed noise, and Fundy whimpers.

“Come on,” Dream says as the body collapses. Blood and thick black ink and something colorful spread on the ground and Dream starts running, but for a terrifying moment, it looks like Karl won’t vanish. It looks like he won’t disappear to reappear later to respawn. It looks like they’ve just killed him. Killed him. Killed him.

The body vanishes into red sparks.

“ _ Come on! _ ” shouts Dream, and the thing behind them roars again, and then some primal instinct drives Fundy forwards into the woods. He grabs Tubbo and then all three of them run into the more wild parts of the SMP, running through trees and blanking out his mind, blank, blank. He’s watched the things he likes burn before. He doesn’t even know Karl that well. He’s burned his flags and buried his father. His knees are weak. His lungs hurt. There’s still something howling behind him. There’s still something behind him and as it cracks trees it doesn’t sound like anything, does it have hundreds of legs or nothing at all?

Dream hits some line he knew was coming. Something in his hands moves. He pulls a lever that wasn’t there a moment ago. The three of them fall.

Fundy makes the mistake of looking up at where they fell from as  _ something _ passes the entrance they’ve dropped into.

Then he yanks his eyes away. Tubbo has collapsed onto the ground. Dream is standing, his mask making him look dispassionate even as he pulls a lever to hide them again. The base they’ve landed in is barely a hole in the ground, barely supplied, and Fundy could swear it wasn’t there before. Dream's invented a hidden hole in the ground just to vanish them. He thinks. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He's standing on plain dirt in a hole in the ground.

“It’s past us,” Dream says. “Haha, we outran it!”

“We killed Karl,” says Tubbo. “Goddammit, we killed him.”

“He’ll respawn,” Dream says, and it’s careless in all the ways Dream isn’t. Tubbo shakes harder.

“It was so fast,” Tubbo says. “You just… came so fast.”

It’s not the first time Dream has descended too quickly, that Dream was too fast for any of them to track. It isn’t, Fundy realizes, the first time he’s seen Dream quickly execute someone with an axe and vanish again. It’s just the first time Fundy’s been with him. He’s not sure it feels any better.

“That was the plan. You all said something about a dreamon hunting camp, right?” says Dream. “I have to say, I’m excited to see it. I hadn’t had a chance yet to visit it.”

“Stop it,” Fundy says. Dream turns to him.

“What?”

“Stop not caring!”

“You’ve been in wars before. It’s not that different.”

“Yeah! Caused by you!”

“Me?”

Fundy growls, and Tubbo grabs his arm, and Fundy stops growling. Right. Right. He breathes in, and he breathes out. Normally this is what he likes about Dream anyway. This ability to just… laugh at almost anything. Normally. 

Gods. Fundy slips down to sitting too. What’s just happened, anyway? He pulls out his book. Another omen, he thinks. Karl’s body, slipping to the ground. Another omen. He writes it down in his book, suddenly certain what the book is for. He looks up at Dream.

“...why did you message me anyway? If I’d also been like - like Karl…”

“You gave me your location in return,” says Dream, just as accusing.

It’s not an answer. It’s an entire answer. Fundy sits next to Tubbo and tries to catch his breath while Dream looks at the ceiling like he can see what’s coming for them if he just looks up. How long had they been running for, anyway? Fundy has to start counting again. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes. It couldn’t have been less than an hour. He has to start counting again. He lost track somewhere between leaping across roofs and fighting things wearing the skins of his countrymen.

Fuck.

He starts counting minutes since the world ended again.

Sixty of those later, they decide to keep moving. It'll be a day, just about, just walking, to get to the camp. Twenty-four hours. One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes. He'll add them to the ones he's already counted.

**Author's Note:**

> [Aurora Borealis by Lemon Demon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmF-t3zfEXo) is the vibes we’re feeling in this club tonight. 
> 
> this is my first time writing dream smp fanfiction. i have been swallowed. I'm super vibing/fixating on this story and am aiming for once a week updates, but no promises ~~especially since I've had to redo details in this chapter MULTIPLE TIMES over the past week because the lore spiraled somewhere as it is i'm ignoring the fact the white house was never actually built and pretending that happened because i don't feel like re-writing that part. also if the fundywastaken wedding doesn't actually happen fuck you it actually did~~
> 
> i hope you enjoy this au, and by enjoy i mean "feel emotions" because, uh, as you've already seen i'm not sure "enjoy" is the mood here exactly,
> 
> (i'm still not GREAT at action tell me how i did with the actual escape sequence)


End file.
